Still Scanning My Bell Museum Project…

This post was originally published on February 15, 2017 during my site transition.

Above: All of the sketches in today’s post were done on 9 x 12 inch white Stonehenge. I used the Sakura Pigma Professional Brush Pen with a fine point. And on the final sketch I added some rapidly applied washes. (You can take time to make lovely washes on this paper if your location isn’t about to close.) I write more about these sketches below.

I still have a stack of scanning to complete before my “Bell Museum” project can go up. But this week the blog turned out to be all about sketching and line, so I wanted to get these two sketches from the Bell posted as examples of having fun with line.

Left: Pen sketch of the free-standing Grizzly Bear at the old Bell Museum building.

The first image is the moose head that hung on the wall in the Touch and See Room. I sat on a chair a little to the right and sketched. It is hung close to the ground so that visiting school kids can stop touch it. (He’s in remarkably good shape despite all the TLC he’s received from kids.) You can see here I’m working on white Stonehenge paper. It’s a wonderful paper for drawing on, especially pen and ink. Typically I go for the brush pen, but I wanted to push around with details on this day so instead I used the Sakura Pigma Professional Brush Pen with a fine point. The tip is a resilient fiber-tip. Even though it’s a solid tip it allows you to get some character in your lines, but also gives you a lot more control than a hair brush would.

Left: Detail of the Grizzly Bear.

You can see I was focusing on contours. (I will have more to say about contours on Friday.) I can see, and suspect you can too, that since this is my warm up, I’ve got a lot more starts and stops in my line than I usually do. Also I was late for the sketch out and I really wanted to get this done before the meeting which was at 3 p.m. and lasted until 3:33 p.m.

I still wanted to sketch more so I went back to the Touch and See Room and sketched this Grizzly Bear, using the same pen and paper. I found it to be a very calming experience, if a little bittersweet because of the upcoming closing, to sketch almost alone in this large room, with the sound of the aquarium water burbling.

Before going home I had time for one more sketch and I sat with my back to the Grizzly and looked back at the Moose, and captured the scene quickly with the same Sakura pen and some watercolor washes. I didn’t have a lot of time because the museum was going to close at 5 p.m., so I worked rapidly. Even so I didn’t feel rushed, I just was grateful to have the opportunity to sketch in this room one more time. (Note: I thought I’d posted this sketch on my blog already, but I couldn’t find the post. I have a dated file for it but no text for the post, and something else on the Bell got posted that day. It’s a mystery. But if you’ve seen it before now at least you’ve seen the warm up sketches.)

When I’ve finished scanning all the pages of this loose sheet journal I’ll post about it on the blog.

Now, back to scanning…

Below: My final sketch for the day—a look back at the Moose head on the wall in the Touch and See Room.